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Wednesday, 29 August 2012

Comedian
Stewart Lee is passionate about electronic music and he takes us on a
remarkable musical journey. We discover how, after the Second World War, a
small group of electronic pioneers began tinkering with their army surplus kit
to create new sounds and music.

Tristram Cary
started the first electronic music studio in Britain but, while France,
Germany, Italy and the USA had lavishly funded research centres, British
electronic music remained the preserve of boffins on a budget.

As the
programme reveals, this make do and mend approach prevailed long after
austerity Britain had given way to the swinging 60s, with Peter Zinovieff
developing EMS synthesizers from a shed at the bottom of his garden in Putney.
(Paul McCartney put on his wellies and took a look). Zinovieff is interviewed
about his experiments in sound.

Unsurprisingly,
the electronic community in Britain was a small, intimate group and joining
Cary and Zinovieff was Daphne Oram, who devoted decades to developing a 'drawn
sound' electronic composition system that never really quite worked.

Brian Hodgson
tells us about 1960s experimental and electronic festivals, including The
Million Volt Light and Sound Rave (1967) at which The Beatles' electronic piece
Carnival Of Light had its only public airing. We shall also hear how the
radiophonic workshop broke new musical ground with Dr. Who.

Experts in
the history of electronic music, including author and musician Mark Ayers and
Goldsmiths College lecturer in computer studies Dr. Michael Grierson give the
boffins' view and Portishead's Adrian Utley explains why the early forays in
electronics are still relevant today.